The Small Stuff That Doesn't Need a Thread. #7

[Spockydog]

*Lazyscrog Update Klaxon*

Woooooooo! I am pleased to report that Lazyscrog Technologies has an official launch date.

I found out last week that we've made the shortlist for two of the three grants we applied for. As a result, I've turned down three different investors, all American, who wanted far too much equity for what they were offering in return.

Of course, nothing is guaranteed...

Except a Scottish Widows pension fund that my ex-wife forced me to take out shortly after we got engaged. I paid into this thing for about four years, starting in 2000. After we got divorced, I cancelled the payments and forgot I ever had it.

Anyway, a few months ago, I received a letter from Prudential, out of the blue, asking if I was Mister xxx who once lived at xxx from xxx to xxx. If so, please send proof.

So I did, and they wrote back and told me that the four years worth of contributions I had made were now worth upwards of £55,000.

This, and the positive news on the grant angle has allowed me to hit the button on a number of things that needed to get done, and being able to pay for it myself will allow me to retain 100% of my company. Though a rich friend who is CIO for a City brokerage might want to invest.

I have employed the services of an award winning, Soho-based, full-stack product development and marketing agency, to transform my prototype into a nice shiny consumer product and bring it to market, along with a range of specially modified grow tents.

We are basically going to use my completely out of the blue pension money to fund the product development and crowdfunding campaign. A whole bunch of agencies have told me they can achieve our goals in a whole bunch of interesting ways.

Our initial launch markets will be the UK, US, Canada, and selected EU nations.

In markets where weed cultivation is legal, we will lean hard into our success growing the Devil's Lettuce. We will be running a Lazyscrog Pilot Scheme in conjunction with Dutch Passion seeds, and ILGM. We expect significant 420 media coverage from this.

We are going to use the UK market as our proving ground for demonstrating the novel ways in which the Lazyscrog can grow a variety of food crops. 

As part of this, Lazyscrog Technologies will be an exhibitor and sponsor at the BBC Gardeners World Live Show at the NEC in Birmingham. We've bought a 3m x 3m marquee stand, and a small sponsorship package. Maggie, our brand ambassador, will be in attendance, and will be an absolute punter magnet. We have been guaranteed 'quality BBC coverage' of some form or another.

And so, on the 15th of June 2024, on the final night of the trade show, we will be hosting the Official Lazyscrog Launch Party event thingy. Gonna be in a lush venue in Birmingham city centre. Somewhere with a nice, upmarket vibe, exact location tbd. Open bar and tasty snacks, and some form of entertainment.

The details are yet to be decided, but I'm paying some fancy agency thousands to organize and promote it, in the hope of getting 30-50 top weed & horticultural journos, editors, and influencers to come along and press the flesh.

Of course, any and all Boarders are invited to come along and get pissed with me. @BigFatCoward, I'll reserve you a seat at the bar.

 

Edited January 17 by Spockydog

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I still get a !% ownership buy in for $1, right? 

Jokes aside, congrats dude. 

[Spockydog]

4 minutes ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

I still get a !% ownership buy in for $1, right? 

Jokes aside, congrats dude. 

Of course, man. You just need to hook me up with some of that sweet, sweet, young-man-blood-juice. 

Yeah, and thanks for the good vibes, my dude. You should definitely come see us when we show in Vegas.

Edited January 17 by Spockydog

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

What a lovely evening. It's nearly 2AM here and I'm about to go pass out. I found my step-father in a shattered glass table about two hours ago. Because he's so overweight he couldn't get out of it (it was actually kind of funny to see). The entire room is covered with shattered glass and once I could finally tip him out of it he decides to sleep there, so had to call an ambulance and it took forever to get him out. Now I probably have to spend a few hours cleaning up the glass tomorrow. Awesome fucking night.  

Edited January 17 by Mr. Chatywin et al.

[Derfel Cadarn]

4 hours ago, Spockydog said:

*Lazyscrog Update Klaxon*

Woooooooo! I am pleased to report that Lazyscrog Technologies has an official launch date.

I found out last week that we've made the shortlist for two of the three grants we applied for. As a result, I've turned down three different investors, all American, who wanted far too much equity for what they were offering in return.

Of course, nothing is guaranteed...

Except a Scottish Widows pension fund that my ex-wife forced me to take out shortly after we got engaged. I paid into this thing for about four years, starting in 2000. After we got divorced, I cancelled the payments and forgot I ever had it.

Anyway, a few months ago, I received a letter from Prudential, out of the blue, asking if I was Mister xxx who once lived at xxx from xxx to xxx. If so, please send proof.

So I did, and they wrote back and told me that the four years worth of contributions I had made were now worth upwards of £55,000.

This, and the positive news on the grant angle has allowed me to hit the button on a number of things that needed to get done, and being able to pay for it myself will allow me to retain 100% of my company. Though a rich friend who is CIO for a City brokerage might want to invest.

I have employed the services of an award winning, Soho-based, full-stack product development and marketing agency, to transform my prototype into a nice shiny consumer product and bring it to market, along with a range of specially modified grow tents.

We are basically going to use my completely out of the blue pension money to fund the product development and crowdfunding campaign. A whole bunch of agencies have told me they can achieve our goals in a whole bunch of interesting ways.

Our initial launch markets will be the UK, US, Canada, and selected EU nations.

In markets where weed cultivation is legal, we will lean hard into our success growing the Devil's Lettuce. We will be running a Lazyscrog Pilot Scheme in conjunction with Dutch Passion seeds, and ILGM. We expect significant 420 media coverage from this.

We are going to use the UK market as our proving ground for demonstrating the novel ways in which the Lazyscrog can grow a variety of food crops. 

As part of this, Lazyscrog Technologies will be an exhibitor and sponsor at the BBC Gardeners World Live Show at the NEC in Birmingham. We've bought a 3m x 3m marquee stand, and a small sponsorship package. Maggie, our brand ambassador, will be in attendance, and will be an absolute punter magnet. We have been guaranteed 'quality BBC coverage' of some form or another.

And so, on the 15th of June 2024, on the final night of the trade show, we will be hosting the Official Lazyscrog Launch Party event thingy. Gonna be in a lush venue in Birmingham city centre. Somewhere with a nice, upmarket vibe, exact location tbd. Open bar and tasty snacks, and some form of entertainment.

The details are yet to be decided, but I'm paying some fancy agency thousands to organize and promote it, in the hope of getting 30-50 top weed & horticultural journos, editors, and influencers to come along and press the flesh.

Of course, any and all Boarders are invited to come along and get pissed with me. @BigFatCoward, I'll reserve you a seat at the bar.

 

Congrats!

[kissdbyfire]

Fantastic news, @Spockydog, very exciting!

I don’t know about what  @Mr. Chatywin et al. should or shouldn’t get, but I defo think @LongRider and yours truly have certainly earned some form of commission as website testers, no? 

 

[Loge]

On 1/11/2024 at 11:26 AM, RhaenysBee said:

Do you have attached bottle caps in your countries as well? let me put it mildly and say it isn’t quite the packaging revolution I was expecting in the 2020s. Or if I want to put it harshly, what an annoying, idiotic piece of crap invention, I hate it, do aluminum bottles, do glass bottles, do anything but, do better. Ffs. 

That's EU regulations at work. 

[Jace, Extat]

Jesus, Ty. Is he okay? Lacerations? What made him fall into the table?

Also, congrats Spocky. That's some cool shit you got going on. Live the high life baby.

[maarsen]

7 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

What a lovely evening. It's nearly 2AM here and I'm about to go pass out. I found my step-father in a shattered glass table about two hours ago. Because he's so overweight he couldn't get out of it (it was actually kind of funny to see). The entire room is covered with shattered glass and once I could finally tip him out of it he decides to sleep there, so had to call an ambulance and it took forever to get him out. Now I probably have to spend a few hours cleaning up the glass tomorrow. Awesome fucking night.  

Tempered glass I hope judging by the spread of the glass everywhere. Breaking tempered glass is a real heavy fall. Here's hoping all is good.

[LongRider]

12 hours ago, Spockydog said:

So I did, and they wrote back and told me that the four years worth of contributions I had made were now worth upwards of £55,000.

Serendipity at its finest!     

5 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

but I defo think @LongRider and yours truly have certainly earned some form of commission as website testers, no? 

A paw printed glossy photo of the Maggie the Brand Ambassador would be lovely!    

 

11 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Yeah, and thanks for the good vibes, my dude. You should definitely come see us when we show in Vegas.

Yanno, North California is not that far from Vegas, it's a date!          

 

 

Edited January 17 by LongRider

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

12 hours ago, Jace, Extat said:

Jesus, Ty. Is he okay? Lacerations? What made him fall into the table?

Some how he avoided anything serious, but he has neuropathy in both feet and the motherfucker had a blood alcohol level of .41. 

[Tears of Lys]

20 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

What a lovely evening. It's nearly 2AM here and I'm about to go pass out. I found my step-father in a shattered glass table about two hours ago. Because he's so overweight he couldn't get out of it (it was actually kind of funny to see). The entire room is covered with shattered glass and once I could finally tip him out of it he decides to sleep there, so had to call an ambulance and it took forever to get him out. Now I probably have to spend a few hours cleaning up the glass tomorrow. Awesome fucking night.  

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick.  That sounds crazy.  Although, I went through a similar situation with my husband the spring of last year.  He's not an alcoholic, though.  He had a weird thing going on with his heart that lowered his blood oxygen levels to the point where he was passing out.  Actually, he spent most of spring of 2023 in and out of the hospital.  

Did you call emergency when he fell into the table?  I had to with mine.  No way I'd be able to lift 6' of him and I'm all of 5'3".  

I've cleaned up more blood than I ever want to see in one lifetime.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

30 minutes ago, Tears of Lys said:

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick.  That sounds crazy.  Although, I went through a similar situation with my husband the spring of last year.  He's not an alcoholic, though.  He had a weird thing going on with his heart that lowered his blood oxygen levels to the point where he was passing out.  Actually, he spent most of spring of 2023 in and out of the hospital.  

Did you call emergency when he fell into the table?  I had to with mine.  No way I'd be able to lift 6' of him and I'm all of 5'3".  

I've cleaned up more blood than I ever want to see in one lifetime.  

I'm sorry to hear that about your husband. These things are never easy.

My step-dad was 6'4, but we know people shrink a bit as they age. He also weighs somewhere between 260-280. My mom is your height and pretty slim. She can't take care of him when he's like this so I'm stuck here, but I'm ready to bounce. I've had enough of this shit derailing my life. He needs a full time caregiver and I just can't do it anymore. We need to put him in a nursing home, which is sad because he's only 62. He just refuses to take care of himself. 

We also had an oh so lovely blood incident a few months ago. He fell (he falls a lot) and this time he hit the back of his head on this, shit, not sure what to call it, this like one inch wooden raise between two rooms. He wouldn't get up so I left him there for a bit. Came back maybe 15-20 minutes later and there was a huge pool of blood. Another ambulance call. And fuck that was nasty to clean up. The god damn dog was licking his blood up. 

[Tears of Lys]

Dogs will be dogs! 

I suppose you know all about cold water and Oxyclean when you're dealing with blood, right? 

I don't blame you at all for wanting to check out.  You never made any vows with him, after all.  Maybe if you weren't there to lean on, your mom and he would be forced to make other arrangements.  It's sad, but obviously necessary.

  

[DireWolfSpirit]

So this incredible feelgood story tonight from the HBCU Spelman College-

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/spelman-college-receives-historic-100-million-donation/#x

Mrs Stryker, from the colleges board, stepped up in a magnaminous way to make the largest ever single donation to a HBCU.

1/4 of the money will go for facility upgrades and 3/4's will be endowed to provide scholarships in perpetuity to deserving young students today, tommorow and for years into the future.

What a classy move and great use for some of the Stryker fortune.

She is the grand-daughter of the founder of the Stryker Medical Equipment organization.

https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2024/01/kalamazoo-county-couple-gives-100m-to-college-largest-gift-ever-to-an-hbcu.html

Edited January 20 by DireWolfSpirit

[Spockydog]

As part of the research into our funding options, my lawyers arranged a company to place a valuation on my company for an equity-based crowdfunding campaign.

We had our second meeting on Friday, and their initial estimate is somewhere in the region of three to five. Million.

Holy fucking patents, Batman!

These guys were proper boffins. They asked a bunch of questions, and told me they need to do a bit more boffining. Once they're done, I'll have a more precise valuation

 

Edited January 21 by Spockydog

[A Horse Named Stranger]

You should offer your company to Musk. Just convince him he needs that for his Mars project. He will heavily overpay.

[Spockydog]

3 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

You should offer your company to Musk. Just convince him he needs that for his Mars project. He will heavily overpay.

I'm actually just about to begin our very first controlled experiment, where we record absolutely every single detail of the grow. Every drop of water, every watt of power, will be recorded. As will the light levels and spectrums, along with the exact amount of nutrients used.

For this specific experiment, I've decided on strawberries. Because, strawberries, amiright?

For the first time, I'm going to to use powdered fertilizers. Because I'm guessing, and seeing as this is actual space travel experimentation and shit, I should drill down into the Ns and Ps and Ks of it all, because that stuff is getting shipped into space by the bag. I also just bought a fancy meter to measure and record CO2 levels inside the tent.

Over the past few months, I've made a whole bunch of new friends in the agritech field. I am amazed at how friendly and helpful people have been. A senior chap from this firm has very kindly let me have the full-fat version of their modelling software for free. They normally charge 500 bucks a month. You just pop in all the variables, and it tells you precisely how efficient your food growing system is.

And Mr CEO, Millionaire-On-Paper, has just booked himself a VIP ticket for this show in Barcelona in Spring. An ex-girlfriend is living there now, and has told me I can stay at her place for a few days. 

I'm having the time of my life! Starting to believe in karma.

Edited January 21 by Spockydog

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Sometimes all you need is to have a long conversation with your big bro to pick your spirits up. Time to get a one way ticket to LA. 

[Fragile Bird]

I just saw a story that popped up on Google, about a guy who worked at the Burger King at Las Vegas airport. Hell, he may have served me on one of the occasions we took my parents there. After 27 years of service, BK honored his years of service by giving him a goody bag with candy and pens and other such crap on it. He did a TikTok video showing the stuff. A single father with two children, he struggled to keep a roof over their heads. One of his daughters did a GoFundMe page to raise some retirement money for him, and as of the end of December $450,000 had been donated.

Now, I know BK wouldn’t have given him anything remotely like that kind of money, but if his wages had been living wages maybe his life and the lives of his children would have been a lot less hand to mouth.

And hey, Americans, does the IRS tax donations made on GoFundMe pages?